


Heroine

by overthetiber



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Community: femslash12, F/F, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-01
Updated: 2012-12-01
Packaged: 2017-11-19 23:16:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/578704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overthetiber/pseuds/overthetiber
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The only thing that would make this dream better is cats.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heroine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gloss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/gifts).



Roxy usually gets home from work thirty minutes before Jane has her twice-weekly afternoon painting class, so it’s a surprise to walk through the door one Tuesday and find Jane sitting at the foot of the couch.

“Truancy, Miss Crocker?” she asks, kicking off her totally kickin’ custom Zazzerpan-print rain boots. The TV is paused on an image of a miniature horse urinating.

“Put your shoes away properly, you scoundrel,” Jane commands. “My class got cancelled.” Next to her, an amorphous mass, which Roxy had assumed to be a bean bag with troll horns, asserts itself into Calliope. She raises one clawed gray hand slightly, in greeting. Roxy waves back.

“You could have warned me we had company,” Roxy chides Jane. “Given me the chance to freshen up. Now Callie has to see my grody-ass Celebration Village duds. Are you trying to kill me with shame?”

“As if you had any,” says Jane.

“You always look lovely, dear,” murmurs Calliope. She can’t speak at full volume without threatening the integrity of the human auditory nerve, so she talks to them always in a dry, apologetic whisper. What a considerate alien guest she is.

“Oh, you,” says Roxy, and motions for Calliope and Jane to scooch apart so she can sit between them. Jane grumbles, but settles easily into Roxy’s side. Calliope tenses, relaxes, and hovers and then rests an elbow on the couch cushions above Roxy’s head. Roxy puts an arm around each friend. She is starting to feel warm and happy.

Jane hits play. Aziz Ansari resumes his shouts of disgust. It’s raining more heavily now, which means Jane will suggest hot chocolate at some point. The only thing that could make this _more_ toters perf, Roxy thinks, is a kitty. Or wizard hats.

\--

Someone is clearing their throat very softly, very close to Roxy’s face. Well, not so much clearing their throat as saying “ahem.” _Ah, hem_. Like a schoolmarm or a librarian.

Roxy doesn’t open her eyes. Her limbs are weighted down with nap, and she’s resting on something alive. In the distance, she hears either a whistling tea kettle or the call of a distressed baby carapace. “Janey?” she yawns.

“You were snoring,” says Calliope.

Roxy groans, but it turns into another yawn. “Wow, party foul. Sorry.”

“I don’t mind. I simply thought you might like to be woken up.” Calliope’s hand is lying flat against her shoulder, claws curling gently around her upper arm. For a moment, it looks like they pass through it; but the rain shining red on the windowpanes catches Roxy’s eye, and everyone’s skin is solid when she glances back. 

Jane approaches, bearing mugs and spoons. “Do you two want marshmallows?”

They do.

\--

Jane has studying to do, so she sits a ways away while Calliope and Roxy drink hot chocolate and discuss writing. Calliope gets stuck on the particulars a lot when she’s explaining things about her latest story, which can be frustrating but also adorable. Roxy coaxes her into revealing a few of the juicier plot elements, leading to much cherubic arm-flailing and complaining about spoilers. For her part, Roxy has a lot of fanfiction ideas, but finds it difficult to develop them beyond the exciting bits. Which she describes as she thinks of them, and in explicit detail.

“Oh my,” Calliope keeps saying. “Oh, my.” Hardcore wizard smut and tender beard combing seem to fluster her equally. Her cheeks flush a deeper and deeper lime. Jane interjects sometimes with an “Honestly!” or an “Is that language really called for, Roxy?”, especially when Roxy lingers too lovingly on mustache descriptions, but Calliope assures them that she’s not uncomfortable.

At some point, Jane remembers that Dirk and Jake are coming over for dinner, and would Calliope like to stay too? A snappy remark earns Roxy vegetable peeling _and_ dish duty. She pretends to sulk over potato, carrot, and celery while Jane and Calliope set the table.

Jane’s dad will be in town next week. Roxy’s mom, who is neither dead nor fifteen, promised to stop by after she finishes her latest book tour. No one has any alcohol use problems. All the people Roxy loves are alive and here, and everyone is happy. It would be toters perf, except none of it is real.

When Dirk knocks at the door, she says, “Okay, stop.”

“What?” says Jane, hand hovering over the doorknob.

Roxy repeats, “Stop. _Stop._ Calliope.” The kitchen dissolves and vanishes into the void.

\--

Roxy is aware, now, of the cold. It’s too dark to see anymore. She thinks Calliope might have gotten bigger, might be standing a little behind her. “Am I dead?”

The voice that issues from Calliope is sepulchral and vast, without muting or sunniness or artifice. Roxy’s kind of glad she no longer hears with human ears. “For now, at least, you are technically dead. I wouldn’t count on it for long, though. May I ask how you figured it out?”

“Too good to be true and all that shit. The usual.” She hugs her chest. “Probs would’ve worked better if you made it a little less tidy.”

Calliope seems startled. “I didn’t make the dream.”

“But you made it stop,” says Roxy.

“Because you told me to. You’re in a dreambubble, Roxy.”

And here Roxy was all ready to chew her out for mind invasion. “What. Isn’t that—what. That is not how those work.” 

“Not generally, no. Usually dreambubbles contain memories, but your dreambubble is in an unusual and sparsely populated corner of paradox space. Your stronger wishes act almost like memories. I don’t understand it that well myself, but I think the phenomenon could safely be summarized in this manner: You create your own reality.” 

“Great. Forever alone, but for real.”

“Not forever. As far as I know, your friends are making efforts to resurrect you as we speak.” A pause. “And I’m here.”

“I didn’t mean—I’m sorry.”

The barely visible outline of Calliope’s head is enough to send fear-prickles from Roxy’s scalp to her toes, but Roxy takes her hand anyway. Her weird alien skin is like nothing Roxy’s ever touched before, but it’s Calliope’s, and that makes it wonderful.

“I want cats in my next dream, if I have one,” says Roxy firmly. “Hundreds of cats. Napping on cushions and drinking milk out of really short martini glasses. You can come too.”

“That sounds very nice,” says Calliope.


End file.
